by David Bishop
Launching a new MA in Creative Writing feels like being the mad scientist in a monster movie. Will our beautiful experiment come to life? Will it survive; will it thrive? Or will a mob of angry lecturers with farm implements and flaming torches [or the academic equivalent – suggestions in the comments section, please] denounce us for abandoning the traditional workshop teaching method? Can popular genres and commercial storytelling media really replace poetry and literary fiction, the tried and tested [or tired and rusted, depending on your point of view] staples of the Creative Writing MA course?
[A quick aside: I’m only a part-time participant in the invention and delivery of our course, my colleague Sam Kelly is the brains behind this operation. Bearing in mind the rather tortuous mad scientist metaphor I started with, that probably makes me the Igor [pronounced eye-gore] in this endeavour of academic intrepidity. But I’m considerably taller than Sam, so it all balances out. Sort of. Anyway, moving on…]
I’m happy to report the results of our journey into the unknown have been a roaring success. [No, we haven’t spent a year teaching students how to roar successfully. That would have been odd, even for us.] [Am I using too many sub-clauses in square brackets? I suspect so. I blame growing up in the 80s, when you couldn’t have a hit single without at least one sub-clause in brackets cluttering its name. Again, moving on…]
Our first cohort of full-timers have completed their studies, although the final grades are still to be ratified by the requisite gathering of august academics. Several students achieved print publication debuts while on the course, either online or in prestigious anthologies. Nearly all of them have taken their writing out for public performances, appearing at such notable events as the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
I can say without fear of contradiction that every full-timer left the course a better writer than they arrived, with a broader knowledge and a far greater selection of skills at their disposal. It may be a while before we see the first fruits of our course appear as complete novels [the wheels of publishing do grind slowly]. But I’m confident several of the first cohort will one day send us copies of the projects they started while on our MA course.
Our first year also featured a cohort of talented part-time students. They’ll be back for another helping of our learning experience from September 9. We spent the first year expanding their minds and rewiring their brains. [Actually, Sam did most of the rewiring – I held the spanners]. Now the fun really starts as the returning cohort focuses more and more on a writing practice of their own choosing – be it genre fiction, writing for graphic novels, creative non-fiction or screenwriting.
Joining them will be two new cohorts – a fresh phalanx of full-timers about to enter the writing sprint of their lives, and a more relaxed plethora of part-timers easing their way into a first year of fun and mind games. By now, the newcomers all have their instructions for Week One and their reading lists for the first trimester. They may be excited, they may be nervous; they may be wondering what they’ve let themselves in for.
I can’t promise what lies ahead will be easy, as that would be lying. It will be tough, challenging, an emotional rollercoaster at times. Students with us never write the same again and never read the same again. Just getting on the course is a massive validation, as we turn away at least two people for every student we accept. But that’s only the start.
We’re here to challenge our students, to push them beyond any limits they’ve previously recognised. We want to fast track them on their journey as writers. Most of all, we want them to surprise us with their creativity and love of what they do as writers.
Welcome to the future of creative writing MAs. Poetry is not an option.
David Bishop, August 30 2010.
David Bishop prepares himself for a poetry reading
David Bishop is equally intolerant of all forms of poetry. No verse was harmed during this post.
